A taxonomy of the discourse relations between words and visual

Abstract

A document is mainly composed of words and images,but the complex relationship that binds these twocompletely different semiotic resources is usually takenfor granted as transparent. The simple relations betweenwords and images – ‘anchorage’ and ‘relay’, identified byBarthes almost 30 years ago – are unable to deal with thecomplexity of their bond, made even more complex bycurrent printing and computer technology. This paperaims to identify the potential relations that bind texts andimages together by arguing for a multilevel descriptionof their logico-semantic relationships. The multiple,evaluative and metaphorical functions of the relationswill also be discussed. The data generated from theproposed framework can form an empirical corpus forquantitative analysis. Examples from a variety of sourceswill be used as examples to show how the framework canbe operationalized.